Background

Roland Quitugua and Aubrey Moore at the University of Guam Cooperative Extension Service have developed a rhino beetle trap that catches more than ten times as many beetles as pheromone traps currently in use. They think it is possible that placing a few of these traps in a neighborhood will catch enough beetles to reduce damage to palms to an acceptable level and looking for volunteer citizen scientists to help with their research.

The essential idea behind the CRB-CS is to recruit volunteers from the public to help with this trapping effort. We are looking for volunteers who are interested in checking one or more traps in their neighborhood on a daily basis. We are planning to use our iNaturalist project site as data entry tool which volunteers can use to report the numbers of beetles caught in the trap or traps they are monitoring. Citizen scientists will be asked to check traps on a daily basis and to add observations to the iNaturalist project database whenever beetles are trapped.

Dr. Arnold Hara, an entomologist from the University of Hawaii in Hilo visited Guam during September 2013 to learn about the coconut rhinoceros beetle. He has very kindly shared a presentation he put together using images from this trip. Please see attached files.